1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of utilizing information on the Internet and computer implemented methods therefor. More specifically, the present invention relates to the field of computer implemented intelligent assistants for utilizing information on the Internet.
2. Background Art
The Internet is a large network made up of a number of smaller networks. It is made up of more than 100,000 interconnected networks in over 100 countries, comprised of commercial, academic and government networks. It has become commercialized into a worldwide information highway and data base, containing information on every subject known to humankind.
The proper and efficient use of the great amount of information available on various Internet sites has the potential of providing Internet users with a variety of information desired for businesses and individuals. In particular, those users interested in certain segments of the information available on the Internet or those users interested in certain specific Internet sites could benefit tremendously from having their specific information of interest available to them in an automated and interesting manner. Moreover, such users would benefit greatly from being constantly and automatically updated on new information as the new information becomes available on their sites of interest.
Due to the prevalence and popularity of the World Wide Web (also called the "Web") servers around the world, a great number of Internet users are particularly interested in receiving updated information of interest to them from various World Wide Web servers on the Internet. By way of background, the World Wide Web is an Internet facility that links documents locally and remotely. The Web document is called a Web page, and links in the page let users jump from page to page (hypertext) whether the pages are stored on the same server or on servers around the world. The pages are accessed and read via a Web browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer.
The Web has become the center of Internet activity since, among other reasons, Web pages, containing both text and graphics, are easily accessible via a Web browser. The Web contains the largest collection of online information in the world, and the amount of information is increasing. Current schemes for accessing a Web document require typing in the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address of the home page in the Web browser. From there, the user starts surfing through the Internet via hypertext links to other documents that can be stored on the same server or on a server anywhere in the world.
The shear size of the information available on the Internet and the Web has made it a necessity for individuals and businesses to efficiently and constantly sift through the available information in order to find and organize the information that is of interest. Stated differently, individuals and businesses realize that the availability of information itself does not result in a competitive edge unless the information is reduced to a manageable size and unless the information so reduced in size is of interest and of value to the business or the individual.
Although surfing through the Internet and in particular the Web is accommodated by hypertext links, the pervading need of the Internet users to receive constant and efficient updates on the new information available on Internet sites of interest has not been adequately addressed by the present Internet applications. Various "search engines" such as Excite, Lycos, AltaVista and others are known that permit a user to search for specific information. However, such search engines must be used on a daily basis to ensure that the updated information is accessed. Moreover, almost any search string results in a huge number of documents and the user would not know which documents have already been ruled out as being of no interest. Further, the search engines do not focus on particular sites that are of interest to the user; they search the entire Internet. Also, slightly different search strings result in very different documents for the user to sift through and analyze. Additionally, no search engine has the capability of alerting a user to the occurrence of updates to information in the sites of interest to the user as soon as such updates occur. In other words, search engines do not automatically and methodically search the Internet to find updates on the information of interest to the user and search engines do not automatically and methodically alert users to such updates. Finally, today's search engines at best explore less than half of the existing Web sites for information and thus many Web sites remain hidden to users. These are only some of the shortcomings of relying on search engines to receive access and updates to information of interest to an Internet user. For the foregoing and other reasons, most individuals and businesses do not use search engines as a tool to methodically and efficiently obtain access and updates to information of interest.
Accordingly, there is serious need in the art for an intelligent process that can assist computer users using the Internet to automatically and efficiently sift through the vast amount of information contained in the Internet, focus on the Internet sites and Web sites of interest, and present information of interest and updates to information of interest contained in such Internet and Web sites. Intelligent processes or software agents are species of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and include applications that assist computer users to use the tools available on the computer system and exhibit human intelligence and behavior such as robots, expert systems, voice recognition, natural and foreign language processing.
Moreover, there is serious need in the art for an Internet application that constantly searches for updates to information of interest to an Internet user and alerts the user of any updates to the information on the sites of interest as soon as such updates occur. There is also need in the art to communicate the collected information of interest and updates to such information to the user in a manner such that the user remains alert and interested in the information.